


Per Ardua Ad Astra

by Potboy



Series: Survival of the Fittest [2]
Category: Stargate Universe
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-22
Updated: 2013-08-21
Packaged: 2017-12-21 01:30:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 22,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/894199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Potboy/pseuds/Potboy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Destiny belongs to Telford, and he is not above using the knowledge of Young and Rush's relationship against them if it means he can get her back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Telford can't believe what he's seeing.

The air reeks of fear and cordite, and David Telford is in the wrong body. They've been back a little under a month and already there's a crisis? He tries not to smile. It's a good sign. 

~ 

For three years he had waited to return, keeping the project alive in SGC's files while everyone around him slowly forgot. For three years he had resisted being sent on assignments that would mean he couldn't be there when the communication stones were brought out once more and a desultory watch kept. 

For three years he had denied the subtle, unstated assumption that Destiny was not coming back. He felt pretty damn vindicated when they made contact barely two days after SGC set out the stones again. He had stuck to this project even when they muttered behind his back that he was losing his perspective, maybe even his mind. So he felt entitled now, even more than before, to call this _his_. 

Almost a month after Destiny reached her new galaxy, defrosting her crew, and still no one important sat in the dingiest conference room deep under the mountain. When Telford wasn't there it was staffed with cadets and janitors. Life had moved on to other crises, and sometimes he thought there was no-one left who remembered that this was supposed to be the greatest mystery in the universe. 

“Am I the only one who still thinks this matters?” he'd asked O'Neill, in the office that smelled of paperwork and disillusionment. “I was promised this.” 

O'Neill gave him the patented sceptical eyebrow raise. “I was promised I'd get to spend my retirement fishing. See where that got me. There are other things you could be doing.” 

“This was to be my command.” Telford can't explain that Destiny is the path to god-like power, infinite knowledge, maybe immortality itself. Rush convinced him of it long ago, but he knows what it sounds like to the average observer and he prefers never to openly admit it's what he really wants. 

“Yeah,” O'Neill stops just short of an eyeroll. “But Young's got it now and--” 

“Young's not fit for--” 

The general's bright, humourous glance barely covers the ice underneath. Telford remembers in time that Young had been O'Neill's first choice and dials back some of the unflattering things he wants to say about Everett. 

“I'll admit he was shaky for a while after that whole... torture... thing.” O'Neill beats his knuckles on his window as if he desperately wants to get out, a fly trapped in a dusty room. “But he's pulled out of his tailspin and he's doing OK. We're getting regular reports. Our scientists are salivating over the new galaxy and what they can remember of the database. It's all...” He circles a hand lazily, “ticking over. No sense in wasting resources trying to get you there when Young's already doing the job.” 

Time to play the champion of the little people, defender of the moral high ground. “And we're just giving up on ever getting those people home?” 

O'Neill gives him a smile that says _I recognise when I'm being fed a line of bullshit, son_. “I get the feeling most of them think they already are. The higher ups are already starting to talk about this as Earth's first generation-ship. Time for you to face the fact that you missed this boat.” 

But David Telford does not admit defeat. Young cannot possibly be worthy of this. All that is needed, then, is to prove Young is still the wrong man for the job, and that should be easy enough. 

~ 

The promise of god-like power looks less convincing than ever as he gets to his feet now, waiting for the new body to stabilize around him. Perverse as it sounds, he prefers to be in Everett. Young's body is not so different from his, about the same age, trained and conditioned by the same regime. The muscle memory is similar and helpful, and he knows he can use it as he would his own without it giving out on him. 

This is, he looks down with a sneer, a civilian. An underweight, under-fit civilian, whose limbs feel mushy and unresponsive around him, whose heart is racing too fast. How is he supposed to carry a rifle in this? 

He doesn't recognise the face. It looks like Young too has decided stone-duty is only fit for non-essential personnel these days. Now Telford's back, that's the first thing that's going to have to change. 

Eli's waiting to greet him. He's not sure what he feels about the genius wunderkind being elevated to science 2iC without having to jump through the SGC's hoops. It's another example of the sloppiness of Everett's command, that a kid who isn't even part of the organisation gets to boss around scientists who've worked their way up through the ranks for years. 

“Where's Rush?” 

“Hey,” Eli's smile doesn't have the edge of eager willingness to please it once had. “Nice to see you too, Colonel. We've just been through a major battle here and Dr. Rush is busy with repairs. But I know everything he knows, so I'm pretty sure I can help instead, if you'll follow me.” 

 _Fobbed off on the nerd? I don't think so._  

“Where's Young?” 

That's definitely a new expression on the kid's face. Open friendliness layered on top of something unyielding, like a marshmallow with a steel centre. Telford's been around the galaxy enough to recognise when a guy's beginning to grow up. Eli's clearly been tested out here, and he at least thinks he passed. 

“Colonel Young was injured in the attack. He's in the infirmary.” 

“Then that's where we'll go.” Telford wheels and heads off, his host body slouching through the movement, scuffing its feet. 

Eli has no problem keeping pace. “Well, yeah,” he says, “So TJ says the colonel _may_ wake up today. She also says no one's to visit even if he does.” 

By sheer force of will Telford draws ahead, though the body's thigh muscles protest at the speed. By his side, Eli's hand stutters out to slow him, drops without making contact. “He's not going to be in any fit state to talk to you. He almost died... _twice.”_  

It's absolutely typical of Everett to _almost_ do something and never quite follow through. But the thought is ungenerous enough to give Telford pause. They were friends once. It's a remembered fact and he can no longer recall how it felt, but still, this is not how you should think of your friends. 

“What happened?” he asks, giving in a little, dropping the pace and the frown. 

In return Eli drops some of his uncharacteristic hardness, gives a bright boyish grin. “It was pretty awesome actually. OK so when the blue aliens cure Chloe they also put a tracker in her – that bit's not awesome, but it's out now and she's fine. So anyway, we're thinking 'yeah, three years, new galaxy, left the stalkers behind' when they drop out right next to us and storm the ship.” 

He slows to a halt, beckons Telford away from the infirmary to his own cubbyhole, “I've got it all on kino if you want to really see. I don't think I'm doing the action sequences justice.” 

 _Not quite so grown up after all._  

“Just tell me what happened. I don't need the verbiage.” 

“OK, so we're taken by surprise. The blue guys come over in these little shuttle-pod things, cut holes in the hull and pour on board. Scott tries to hold them off--” 

“Scott? Where's Young at this point?” 

Eli waves a hand towards a window, where the swirling blue vapours of FTL are curling endlessly past. “He's in the shuttle, taking hydroponic dome panels out of storage and up to the repair robot. The blue guys have already got the shuttle docks staked out, so he's marooned out there. Scott tells the civilians to lock down in their quarters, and he and the military guys are getting pushed back into the gateroom. Meanwhile Rush battens the rest of us in the bridge with half of the aliens trying to get in.” 

It certainly sounds like a typical Everett-orchestrated clusterfuck so far. Telford wonders if he can sell it as such to O'Neill. He turns down Destiny's high street, the long spinal corridor that works its way past crew quarters to showers and mess and infirmary. 

“So this is where the awesome comes in,” Eli falls into step again. “Rush and Young are back and forth on their private channel plotting--” 

“Private channel?” 

Eli looks shifty. “Yeah. That's a new thing.” He shrugs. “I think Camile's on it too. You know, so the elders of the ship can have meaningful talks without us young whippersnappers butting in?” 

“ _Elders_?” Thank God the kid hasn't grown any sense of politics or knowledge of the chain of command along with his spine. 

“Yeah, you know. The leadership team.” Eli shrugs again as though he hasn't just handed Telford a damning indictment of Colonel Young on a plate. The ship's commanding officer is power-sharing? Ruling by committee? Allowing _Rush_ and the IOA anywhere near the reins? O'Neill really isn't going to like that. He manages not to smile. 

“He's been ferrying stuff in space, right, so he's in one of the suits. He takes the shuttle over one of the holes, matches speed and jumps in. Then – this is really neat – he walks over to the nearest alien shuttle, hops in, gets rid of the occupants and flies it back to the alien mothership. The aliens think it's one of their own, right, so they let it on board. Meanwhile Rush has talked him through rigging the engine to blow. So he leaves the rigged pod on the mothership and jumps back into space. The mothership blows, and he's left kind of chilling there in the big outside.” 

The boy's enthusiasm is horribly familiar. Telford's never quite understood how it happens, but Everett has this way of winning people over. One moment they'll be trying to kill him, couple of weeks later they'll be best buddies. It's not exactly a command skill, but it's done him more good than he deserves over the years. It's fucking infuriating to find it's happening again. 

“The idea is,” Eli goes on, “that Rush will remote pilot Destiny's shuttle to come and pick him up. But that's the point when the aliens crack the bridge door and we have a firefight on our hands. By the time Scott's broken out of the gate room and rescued us, Young's half suffocated. We get him and the shuttle back on board through the cargo hold, and he's conscious enough to get the suit off and breathe for a while. 

“Then all the blue guys come gunning after Scott. They trap him and the soldiers between them and the bridge door, and it's looking like a scene from 300--” he nods, encouragingly, “kind of bleak. When the aliens start getting mown down from behind. And hey, there's Young – he's armed the civilians and turned up in a kind of eleventh hour cavalry charge thing. Soon it's just a case of mopping up stragglers, and then mopping the floor. It's like walking in blueberry sundae.” 

A little nervous joke to cover up distress. As they turn the final corner before the open infirmary doors Eli does reach out and snag his arm, stopping him. 

“But then the colonel gets zapped, covering for Brody. So I guess what I'm saying is... yesterday was tough for him. I think he deserves a day off—don't you?—before you hassle him with whatever it is this time.” 

 _Let him get his balance back? That would defeat the whole purpose._  

“That's a hell of a lot of trust for Rush,” Telford says instead. “Spacing himself, knowing that either Rush picks him up or he dies?” Telford wouldn't have that kind of faith in the conniving bastard, that's for sure. He's surprised Young would. “When did that happen?”

 Maybe in deference to the infirmary door, Eli answers in a library-whisper, but he carries on smiling as fondly as though he's remembering a family holiday. It looks like some of Rush's madness is rubbing off on the kid. “Couple of weeks ago they spent four months stranded on a planet together.”

 Telford's incredulous look clearly delights him. “Loopy time stuff. It's exactly as cool as it was in the movies. At any rate I guess they talked down there because they've been lots better since they came back.” 

They're both whispering now, the quiet of the hallway and the low moonlit blue of the lights casting a spell of silence. Telford's about to shake himself out of it and march on in when he hears Rush's voice, low and private and hurt, say something he can't quite hear. He moves closer, to the door jamb, where he can observe the room without being seen himself. 

The infirmary is in night-time mode, lit dimly by the banks of Ancient consoles with their jewelled controls. The other sleepers – because the place is full of injured – create a kind of slow, drowsy, intimate backdrop to where Rush sits on the edge of Everett's bed with one hand clenched in his hair. Everett's bandaged from hip to shoulder. Three tubes in his left arm, but his right hand is clasped around Rush's left, holding tight. 

It gives Telford the same queasy feeling he felt when first surrounded by the Ursini - the gut drop of confronting something altogether alien. 

“It's just I...” Rush is struggling hard to sound angry but not quite making it. “First there's Gloria, and then there's Mandy. And now you... I'm beginning to feel like some kind of angel of death, and I—” 

“Nick,” Everett's voice is barely there, a rough scrape in the corners of the quiet, but he smiles the little, sweet, hopeful smile Telford's only seen before in Emily's wedding photos. “You're not any kind of angel, believe me. Come here.” 

“I should be getting back to--” 

“Five minutes. Please. Come here.” 

Eli steps up beside Telford like he's going to say something. He has the same look of perplexed disbelief that Telford can feel on his own face, so evidently this was something he didn't know either. He stops when Telford grabs his wrist, pulls it back trying to decide if he's affronted or afraid.

Meanwhile Rush has clambered into Everett's bed, is figuring out how to wrap himself around the guy without pressing on the burn or jarring the IV lines. Everett's pulling the little freak in close, carding the fingers of his good hand through Rush's hair as Rush's tense frame slowly relaxes against him. And Telford is cautiously trying to find a way to interpret this that doesn't spell 'lovers', but he's coming up empty. 

“You guys. You _guys_!” Eli's got away from him, is bursting into the room, all flustered bonhomie and gossipy curiosity. “You're an item now? When did this happen?” 

Immediately Rush is on his feet and all the way across the room, bristling like a thrown cat, but it's Telford he's glaring at. They've all learned over these past years to recognise him by his gait, his mannerisms, regardless of which body he wears. 

Everett closes his eyes, no more. It's a little gesture but the sheer defeat in it means the world. 

Telford goes hot all over with triumph. _Oh yeah, I'm going to crucify you both with this. You are going to be the laughing-stock of the whole universe, and Homeworld Command will have to give me what is mine then. This ship, this destiny is_ mine _._  

“Yes,” he says, his face aching from trying to keep a lid on the grin. “ _Boys_. Tell us everything.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Rush is not worried at all.

Sometimes Rush despises the military. All of them, equally, flock of black carrion crows that they are. Yes, even Tamara, coming to the rescue five minutes too late to do any bloody good. 

“I said no visitors, Eli.” She somewhat redeems herself by placing herself between Rush and Telford, so if he's quick enough – and he is always quick – he can get past behind her before Telford has the chance to seize him by any part of his person. He's through the door before they can stop him, opens an access panel and goes to ground in the walls. 

It's not running away. Even if it is, he doesn't give a toss. Why not get out of this ridiculous situation as fast as humanly possible? Staying is only going to make it worse. 

“Hey, don't put this on me! I _told_ him. What do you expect me to do, wrestle him to the ground?” Eli's indignant voice buzzes through the walls, tinny and far away. 

“I want to speak to Colonel Young before the two of them get their story sorted out, so step aside Lieutenant.” 

“As chief medical officer...” 

It's another round of the ubiquitous military pissing contest. Rush sighs and notices that the conduit to his left is showing definite signs of water damage. Too many people breathing out moisture in the hallways. Insulation that perished long, long ago. He should maybe do something about that. 

~ 

Most of Young's attention is being taken up by the pain, by the constant struggle to relax his seizing muscles, not to fight it and make it worse. He didn't expect Rush to stay, and it may be better, tactically, that he's gone, but still, he would have liked some backup at this point. 

“No. No that's just rude!” Eli's protest comes over the hiss of TJ gasping in shock. He snaps his eyes open and sees her stumble, doubled over, obviously shoved hard in the stomach. OK, that crosses a line. He yanks the needles out of his arm, pushes through the scour of lava-hot pain to sit up. Even if it kills him, someone's going to get shoved right back. 

“You are out of order!” Against Morrison's body, TJ probably doesn't need his help. She's going to get it anyway. He swings his legs off the gurney, takes a moment to try to force his spasming lungs to breathe in again, and before he can get any further to her rescue she's grabbed him by both shoulders and is making him lie back down. 

“Something going on here?” Greer asks, silky smooth from the doorway. Young thinks it's going to be all right with Greer – once Greer knows – but hell, he wishes he was sure. 

“Sergeant,” TJ bares her teeth at Telford in what is not a smile. “Please escort Colonel Telford somewhere else. Anywhere else. That is an order from the chief medical officer of this ship, and if Col. Telford doesn't like it, he can take it up with General O'Neill.” 

“Yes Ma'am.” Greer nods at Young before motioning Telford to go ahead of him into the corridor. Telford makes a token protest but gives in, and as he leaves Young lets himself be manhandled back into bed by TJ, who is busily sticking him full of needles again.

 Good people. He has so many good people. And the chances are he will lose some of them over this. He doesn't think he can bear... 

Yeah, well. It hasn't happened yet. He pulls himself together fast enough to address Eli's back before the young man too disappears out of the door. “Eli?” 

Eli turns round, licking his lips. He gives a comical grimace that doesn't cover the concern in his eyes. “So... that was intense. Is it only me who thinks that guy really needs to chill out? Cut back on the coffee maybe?” 

“You don't want to see Telford in caffeine withdrawal, believe me.” Young waits for Eli to pull up a chair by the bedside, fall into it. He's glad it starts with Eli, for many reasons. “So?” 

Eli prims up his mouth like he's trying not to laugh. “Seriously, though? You and Rush? In the long history of kind of disturbing stuff I did not see coming, that's got to be number one. Kidnap by spaceship aside, I mean. You really are...?” 

It's no good lying to people on Destiny. All it means is that when they inevitably find out the bad news they feel betrayed on top of it. “We really are.”

 “Wow.” The laugh escapes Eli's control in a little 'huh' that Young is fairly sure is not outrage or shock. “I mostly want to say congratulations, except I gather from Colonel Telford's reaction that there are parts of this that kind of blow.” 

TJ snorts from where she's gone back to her desk, and Young's going to have to have a word with her about her filthy mind. He tries not to smile. “There are going to be a hell of a lot of people who don't get this,” he says, which is a mood killer in itself. “Both here and on earth. People who think this makes me unfit to command.” 

“Yeah? Maybe some jerks.” Eli's dismissive, with the blithe certainty of a young man who's never seen prejudice in operation, but Young's heard enough from Greer, from Becker, from Barnes and James and hundreds of others to know how the world really works. 

“And obviously we have no jerks on this ship.” 

Eli rolls his eyes. “My point is... screw them, right? Who cares what they think?” 

“Ask me that again when we're in the middle of another mutiny.” 

“You're not... really... _serious_ about that?” 

Young values Eli's innocence. He's a nice guy with a big heart, and he's in the process of becoming an outstanding young man. “I hope it won't come to that, but...” He tries to shrug, which turns out to be a mistake he pays for in forty seconds of agony. 

Eli's looking uncharacteristically subdued when he opens his eyes again. “Problem?” 

“Just... I didn't think I'd be sorry to see the end of the secret spy stuff, but I kind of liked being your go-to science guy. You know? Being the one you trusted, that was pretty awesome. And now it's going to be Rush, I don't know where I'm going to fit. Back under his thumb, I guess.”

 Young just catches himself in time to stop the laugh before it turns his seared ribs to acid. “Eli, you think being with me is going to change Rush? You think it's going to make him less of a liar?” 

Divorce has taught him not to be so naïve. The things you hate are never going to go away. You've just got to learn to deal. “Rush still tells me whatever he thinks will get me to do what he wants me to do. You tell me the truth. You're always going to be my go-to science guy, Eli. This doesn't change that.” 

Eli looks into the blue brightness of the corridor outside as though he expects Rush to be standing there, overhearing. “Which is kind of sad, when you think about it.” 

It is, but it's also how things are. And if that's how things are, then he will accept them as they are. “You think Rush is a trustworthy person?” 

“Well... to be honest? No. Not really.”

“You think I'm stupid?” 

It earns him a laugh that spells _maybe sometimes_ , but what Eli actually says is “No.” 

“Then it follows. He's not trustworthy, so I don't trust him. Doesn't mean I don't care about him.” 

“I guess.” Eli looks reassured and sobered all at once. Too sad for Young's liking. 

“Least we're not trying to kill each other any more, right? That's got to make your life easier.”

 “You guys,” Eli stands up, slides the chair away, and smiles, big and unexpected and welcome. “I don't know which of you is scarier. You deserve each other. And if people have a problem with that, I'm going to smack them in the face for you... In a totally non-violent way, of course. Probably just with... sarcasm and witty banter. You know?” 

Young smothers another laugh. “Thanks Eli. If you... uh... see Camile, can you tell her I want a word.” 

“I took that radio off you for a reason,” says TJ, materializing by the bedside with a stern look and a glass of steaming green herbal tea. “You need to rest.” 

He is parched and he drinks the stuff gladly even though it tastes of swamps. “While Telford runs around the ship bad-mouthing me to anyone who'll listen? I don't think so.” 

“Greer's with him,” she tries to reassure him as she takes his pulse. “Greer can handle it.” 

Young's about to point out that Telford will ditch Greer as soon as they round the first corner, but his vision blurs with sudden sleepiness, he loses the thought, and he gathers he's just been drugged. “Well that's good. Greer's famous for his diplomacy and tact.” 

“About as much as you are, sir.” 

He falls asleep smiling. He is clearly surrounded by damn fine people. What on earth was he worried about?

 ~

But of course the conversation can't be put off forever. Telford finds Rush three hours later when he has to come out of the walls to feed the map of damage into the computer, interface it with the main schematic. It's only bad luck – or maybe accurate intuition on Telford's part – that the man comes into the core room just as Rush is about to leave. 

Telford is considerably less intimidating in Morrison's body, but there's something in the back of his eyes that puts Rush in mind of sharks. Something flat, dead, remorseless. “So,” he says. “You want to explain what I just saw?” 

The expression doesn't throw Rush at all. He's seen it from Young often enough to get quite used to it. They switch their humanity off when they need to, these people. It's admirable in its way. Almost scientific in its clarity. But of course no match for the real thing. “Do you not have something better to do than amuse yourself with gossip, Colonel? 

“You know what I'm asking.” 

“As a matter of fact, I don't.” He folds up his papers and nods to Park and Brody, with whom he had been trying to address the problem. Brody is watching with solemn eyes, and Park's head is tilted towards the door, her frown of frustration replaced by wariness. 

“But one, I don't know what authority you have to come here and ask me anything. And two, regardless of _where_ you stand in the 'programme',” he makes mocking air quotes, courtesy of too much time spent with Eli, “If it's not about my work, it's none of your business what I do. So you'll oblige me by stepping out of my way and letting me get back to my job.” 

He's forced to come within grabbing distance to get out of the door. Telford makes a move to stop him, but drops his hands at Brody's cough. 

“You know I'll take this up with Young,” Telford says, as if that's some kind of threat. 

“You do that,” Rush smiles nastily. He's not worried. Telford is toothless. There's nothing he can do from millions of light years away that will materially change anything on this ship. As for Young's hurt feelings... well. Young's method of dealing with the source of his emotional pain – beating the shit out of it with his fists – is something he's going to enjoy watching a great deal, in Telford's case. 

“I'm sure he'll be _delighted_ to be questioned about his love-life by _you_. I'm positive he'll give you all the help you deserve.” 

Rush turns a corner and reaches for the cover of the crawl-space to go back where it's safe. There's nothing he can do to help. There never has been anything he can do in these situations but stand back and do his work, make no noise, call no selfish attention to his own needs or griefs or desires. He has practised making himself disappear, and he's certain that's what everyone most wants from him right now. Not to exist at all. 

Behind him Park asks “Love-life?” in a tone of sceptical fascination. 

He can hear Telford's smile even through the deck plating. “You are not going to believe what I just saw...”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which James defends Young's honour, and Park violates Rush's autonomy.

 Since the science team's blitz on the medical database, looking for information for Volker's kidney operation, TJ's been making serious progress in identifying and learning to use the Ancient tech. When Young wakes he finds himself the willing guinea-pig for a trial of a hand-held regeneration device, similar to the Goa'uld's, but slightly less effective and a great deal less showy. It still brings the burn down from third to second degree, which unbelievably makes the pain _worse_. 

“Plus there's this thing,” she says, indicating what looks to him like a mangle. “I've sequenced your DNA from your blood, so I just feed that information in here and look...” it squeezes out a roll of translucent material that frankly creeps him out. It has hair-like filaments on the underside that shift with the shifting recycled air. “New skin.” 

She applies the stuff to the seeping burn along his side, where it sinks and settles in, melding itself to the exposed flesh. “It'll keep infection out of the wound, let it heal, and then flake off when your own skin regrows. I can't tell you how much easier this stuff is going to make my life. It makes bandages look barbaric.”

“Yeah, that's good.” He tries not to squirm away from the stuff. “You couldn't have put it on while I was asleep? It's going to give me nightmares.” 

TJ gives him her best patient look. The one that says _stop being such a child_. “Most of what they found on Atlantis is too advanced to be replicated on Earth, but this is only a few steps beyond what our doctors are working on now. It's close enough to be understandable but advanced enough to revolutionize medicine as we know it.” 

He pulls on his shirt, stretches cautiously. Oh, that's the business. There must be some kind of painkiller in it too, because now he feels stiff, bruised right down to the spine but nothing more. Suddenly he can understand TJ's enthusiasm. This is pretty miraculous. “OK. I'll send Brody down here to figure out how the device works. When he's got it, he can stone to Earth and tell them.” 

“It'll be nice to have some good news to send back.” 

It will. Whether it outweighs the moral outrage Telford is probably stirring up even now is another matter. He shrugs on his jacket. “Don't jinx it, Lieutenant.” 

“No sir. All right then, I'm going to clear you for light duties. A bit of paperwork, maybe a wander around the halls. Report back for another regeneration treatment at the same time tomorrow and for the rest of the week. No gate missions until I clear it.” 

“I got that.” He nods and turns to face the door, peripherally aware of Varro watching him as he changes Airman Atienza's IV bag. Atienza is also looking much improved this morning. 

Varro says nothing, so Young pretends he hasn't noticed the scrutiny as he braces himself to go out into the ship. If a little light staring is all he has to face now, that won't be anything new. 

The corridors are unusually quiet. His watch says there's five minutes until next shift change. The place should be full of enlisted personnel on their way to their duty stations. Suppressing a flare of irritation, he wheels and heads for the military rec-rooms, where marines and airmen alike retreat to get a break from civilian disapproval – where they can hang out together, be as rough as they like, and not scare the shit out of their shipmates. 

The sound rolls down the empty metal corridor like an oncoming storm. A dozen people talking over each other. Shouting. The crack of a blow, and the volume cranks up over the scuffle of feet. Young's had a lot of experience of barrack-room brawls. He's pretty sure that's the sound of both sides separating the instigators by force. Everyone's yelling. It hasn't yet exploded into widespread kicking, but it's close. 

He pauses outside the door, to get a handle on the dynamic. 

“I'm just saying,” Corp. Briggs' voice. Out of breath and puffed up from being the centre of attention. A spokesman of sorts. “I'm not taking orders from any damn fag.” 

It's an extraordinary sensation. Young's always thought he was as educated as a man could be about the problems of minorities in the forces. He's tried hard to be aware, to mitigate their difficulties to some degree. Turns out, that's still a very different thing from actually _being_ one.

All of a sudden he's grateful to have had the training he had last year when both Camile and Rush were out to get him. Without it, this might have felt unbearably personal. Even with it, it's all he can do to hold on to his calm. 

There's a chorus of approval, agreement from half of the room. He angles to get a better view. It's Vanessa James, surprisingly, who's being held back from taking another swing at Briggs. Her neat bun is disintegrating and her lip is split. Briggs has quite a shiner and the knuckles of his right hand are dripping blood on the floor. Sgt Michaels' grip on him doesn't look secure enough for Young's liking. 

“You're such a fucking bigot,” James shouts. “I suppose you don't take orders from any fucking bitch either.” 

“Why don't you just shut your mouth, woman?” 

Outrage ripples through both sides like a snake. James yanks free at the same time as Briggs. She goes for him with a right hook. He stoops to ram her with a shoulder. Both sides are yelling again and shouting and shoving. It's about to go up like a rocket. 

James stumbles as she's driven backwards into her supporters. She's falling, with Briggs on top of her. Young barrels in and yanks him off. The tearing sensation down his newly healed ribs barely registers, and certainly not as pain. He's just happy to crack Briggs across the jaw and shove him into the wall, hang him there like a side of meat, his arm braced across the man's chest - pushing until Biggs can't breathe. 

“You got a problem with me, corporal?” 

He's got to give Briggs points for honesty, or stubbornness or something like that. Briggs tries at first to say 'yes'. But Young doesn't let him get it out. He keeps up the pressure until he sees fear turn to panic and panic turn to surrender in the other man's eyes. There's silence behind him. They've all seen this before, they all know what he's capable of. Sometimes he lets them forget. Sometimes they need to be reminded. 

On the very edge of unconsciousness, Briggs gasps, “No sir.” 

Young smiles the hard, humourless smile that says 'I am one second away from tearing your throat out with my teeth.' He lets Briggs drop to the floor and turns to face the room. 

“Anyone else? Michaels...? Baras...?” 

They look away rather than say 'no'. He chalks that down as a potential problem, but not one that has to become actual right now. “Good. Because if you force me to, I will put you down so hard you will never see the light of day again. Are we clear?” 

Baras mutters “Yes sir.” 

Michaels avoids his eye again and he isn't letting that pass a second time. He gets up in the guy's face. Michaels is young and tough and taller than him – most guys are – and Young could still take him in three seconds if it came to it. He grins. “Are we clear?” 

Michaels caves. “Yes sir.” 

“I can and will kick your ass.” 

James flashes a smile of surprise and recognition, as he nods to her in gratitude on the way out. 

“Now get your lazy carcasses to your posts, or you will all be on a charge.” 

He walks a long way down the corridor with a deliberately easy stride before he allows himself to slump in reaction. 

So. Two or three deep breaths to blow away the rest of the fury and he becomes aware that the waistband of his trousers is wet with blood and plasma. Apparently light duty doesn't include lifting insubordinate marines off the ground. Who'd have guessed? 

Since TJ's going to be pissed with him anyway, and half his people are pissed with him, and he's still spoiling for a fight, he heads back to the infirmary via the armoury, where Greer must be hiding out instead of putting a lid on this crap like he should. 

Greer looks up as Young leans on the side of the door, then looks back down to complete the change of shift handover inventory. Young can't decide if that's efficiency or if he's being ignored. And this is such... shit. It's such shit. To suddenly be unsure even of Greer, is... 

Maybe he's more rattled than he thought. 

~ 

Rush hasn't felt this focussed in a long time. Perhaps interpersonal awkwardness is what he needs to operate at peak efficiency. No contact with people means no distractions, no mess, no ambiguity, no disappointed looks or demands, and he finds he can do very well without any of those things. 

He has located a store of heavy duty machining equipment, with which almost any idiot aboard can plug the holes the Nakai drilled in the hull. Of course, getting hold of the idiots to do it will require talking to Young, so he's bumped it down to a lower priority. He can pass the message through Park, once he's made sure Park is on his side.

He has confirmed that the rest of the battle damage to the ship has been fixed, and that her three year trip between galaxies has not done her any further structural harm. The recharge on arriving seems to have largely been soaked up by the recent attack and the round-the-clock repair schedule, so he expects her to drop out within the next few days to find a star. It is essential to have the power conduits in the habitable zone checked and, if necessary, replaced by then. 

But that too will require many untrained hands, liaising with the military and ultimately talking to Young. 

So Park is his priority right now. Park who can then become his go-between and do that job for him, because he really doesn't have the time. 

He finds her in the engineering substation he used during the mutiny. She has earphones on – the computer is reading her a text about the grammatical structure of Ancient. Given that she is listening to it in Ancient, this is information she surely already knows. She jumps, comically, when he taps on the edge of her console as if knocking at her door. 

“...Dr. Rush?” Park takes off the earphones. He finds it amusing that in this world without deodorant she can tell who it is by the smell. 

“I've been working on something I think might interest you,” he opens, because there's no surer way to snag a scientist's attention. 

“Me?” She's sceptical, but intrigued, following his movements with her head as he backs towards the main console, trying to track him by the faint scuff of his footsteps. 

“Obviously a cure for your condition is more Lt. Johansen's field than mine, but I've been giving some thought as to how to mitigate it to allow you to return to your duties.” Does that sound cold? Maybe that sounds cold. “And to restore you to a more normal level of functioning in general.” 

“Col. Young asked me if I could teach the crew to read and write Ancient. I can type well enough, and we can scan students' written work so the computer can read it to me.” 

“No no no.” When did this happen? Why wasn't he told? It may be a good idea to have someone teach the ignoramuses on board so that they can be of more use in future. But not Park. “That's a waste of your talent. We can do better than that.” 

“I've tried.” She keeps interrupting him. On the one hand he's more glad than he can say that she's treating him as though nothing has happened. On the other, could she just shut up and listen? “But half of the bridge and science stuff only makes sense if it's presented as diagrams, which I can't see, and the computer can't successfully describe to me. Why not do something else that's useful instead?” 

It's a sidetrack. It's probably best just to ignore it. Rush brushes it aside with a hand-gesture that she won't see. 

“But if I could restore enough of your sight to allow you to read the consoles again? To let you walk around the ship without fear of falling or colliding or losing your way? To identify people at a distance and have some small sense of their posture and body language?” 

Park takes off her dark glasses and strangles them between her hands. Her eyes are fixed entreatingly on a spot just over his left shoulder. This would fix that too. 

“How?” 

“I think we're all aware from...” he pauses, wishing he had approached the subject from some other direction, but there's now no better way to end the sentence than by simply ploughing forwards. “From Col. Young's experience that Destiny is capable of directly affecting our minds.” 

He thinks something's changed about the atmosphere of the conversation thanks to that little slip up, but he's no expert on that kind of thing, so he ignores it and carries on. “We know, therefore, that the ship has a system for broadcasting information directly into the brain in such a way that it is experienced as sensory input.” 

Parks' eyes widen. She's not stupid – she's got the gist of it already. Time to add a little perspective in case she's now wishing for too much. 

“Col. Young's simulation was indistinguishable from reality, but to achieve that level of complexity Destiny had to liberate memory from elsewhere – we caught the program because it was slowing up other operations. It would be prohibitively expensive of processing power to run such a thing on a day to day basis.” 

“I suppose,” she says, angling her head away to conceal a flash of regret. “But something simpler...?” 

“Exactly,” Rush calls up the program, initializes it. “I've written something that will project a wire frame model of your surroundings into your brain on a real-time basis. It will outline your surroundings and their contents, so you know where you are and what else is occupying the space. You'll see outlines of the personnel, flagged with their names, so you'll be able to look people in the face and to follow broad gestures such as pointing. Plus of course you'll be able to 'see' any data presented by the computer in the format in which it is presented to the rest of the team.” 

It will be the first time he's ever designed the inside of someone's mind. It's really quite exciting. Rush smiles and doesn't worry too much whether it looks inappropriately fierce – she can't tell, after all. 

“Shall we try it?” 

Park puts both hands to her mouth, whispers through her fingers. “Please.” 

Rush presses the final key, and Park stiffens. Her unmasked eyes widen and shift to his face – still not quite eye contact, but it's close. He can probably fine tune that in version two. Cautiously, she turns her head, her gaze tracking the walls, the corners of the room, the consoles. There's a meaningful click as she puts her dark glasses down on her monitor, and then in a flurry of unanticipated movement she's up and across the room and hugging him for all she's worth. 

His muscles tighten automatically in a flinch, release only gradually as he re-establishes control over himself. She lets go and steps back as he figures out how to re-engage after this unwelcome interruption of his autonomy. 

“Sorry! Sorry,” she says, breathlessly, her grin so bright it looks unhinged. “But this is wonderful! I mean, no gate trips, obviously, but that's only ever a case of running away from monsters so I'm not missing anything there. How can I ever thank...?” 

Her exuberance fades slightly, and her expression shifts to something more familiar to him – suspicion, realization. Resigned amusement. 

“You didn't have to do this to get me on your side, you know.” 

Rush hugs himself, one hand on the opposite elbow, the fingers of the other hand on his mouth in place of a cigarette. It's worrying if he's becoming obvious to these people, although perhaps inevitable after all this time. 

“Well,” he sounds tired even to himself. There must be a way of turning this conversation that doesn't give away anything personal, but nothing's currently coming to mind. He calls up the to do list he's been keeping on the mainframe and is professionally satisfied by the way she is obviously able to read it. “There is a lot to be done and too few of us to do it. I can't have you sitting idle, can I?” 

Park has the determined look of someone desperate to return a favour. “Because if this is to sort of win us over to the idea of you and Col. Young being...well, you know...” a grimace of humorous discomfort. “I don't think any winning is necessary. We're all...happy for you.” She rolls the idea around the inside of her skull, tipping her head back to thoroughly consider it. “ _Bemused._ But happy.” 

As if he cares what they think. But the friendliness is welcome. “You _can_ do me a favour if you like. Take the list to Young, see how many of his people you can get him to lend you to check the conduits. Even the grunts can spot rust.” 

“You're avoiding him?” 

He should have gone to Brody. Brody wouldn't have insisted on an emotional cross-examination on top of the necessary data. 

She tries to put a hand on his arm. “Why?” 

 _Because Young almost_ died _and I don't know if I want to go through that a third time. Because hearing the man say he will be happy to put up with this shit for my sake is different from watching him actually do it. Because either he will decide I'm not worth it – and that will be fucking miserable, thank you very much – or he will decide I am, and that will just confirm that he's a total fucking idiot._  

 _Because I don't want to feel this complex of helplessness and fury and offensive protectiveness and stark familiar terror. So I'm not going to. I'm not going to feel it. I'm going to do something useful instead._  

He steps away. “Anytime now would be fine.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Camile knows what it's like.

 “I'm just saying, sir. You don't have to do this to keep a handle on the guy. We can still put him out an airlock for you. This ship is still better off without him.” 

They are standing in a little recess along the armoury corridor, hopefully out of earshot from the airmen guarding the weapons. Young tilts his head down and pinches the bare place on his left hand where his wedding ring used to sit. 

They are survivors together, Greer and he, of that last disastrous mission – the one before Icarus. The one that turned him into the hollow, doubtful thing he is today. They don't talk about it because really, what can you say about that level of Hell? But coming through it together... well. It created a bond. A bond he never thought would break. 

Greer isn't looking at him either – he's directing his puzzled, disappointed look at the deck. “Because this is wrong, sir, and you know it.” 

OK. OK, so this hurts. Lots of things do. Push on through. Young lifts his head and straightens his shoulders. “Sergeant Greer.” 

Ron looks up, startled by the tone in his voice. He doesn't get to hear this one often, not directed at him. 

“As a personal favour, sergeant, I am going to pretend you didn't say any of that. I'm not here to discuss my choices of partner with you. I am here because I just had to break up a riot in the rec-room that _you_ should have made sure never got that far.” 

Because Greer is quite similar to him, he recognizes the flare of aggression in Ron's eyes as a flinch. The guy doesn't like this any more than he does. Well, that's fine, isn't it? Then maybe he shouldn't have started it. He stares back levelly until Ron looks away.

 “Yes sir.” 

“I want to make this clear. I am your commanding officer. You may have an opinion of my moral conduct on your own time, but you may not allow it to interfere with your duties. Whichever side of this debate you come down on, it is your job to keep order. Don't let me catch you slacking again.” 

He walks away, but he can't leave it behind. It's like another burn. Just to make his day complete, whatever he's done to his side has knocked out the painkilling properties of TJ's miracle wrap and every step is like wading through live embers. 

Greer is quietly but fiercely religious. He knew that. The guy's faith is one of the things he's always secretly admired. A source of strength and sometimes of surprising compassion. But not this time, obviously. 

Shit. Shit. Greer was like his right arm. He'd rather have lost his right arm. 

Still, freaking out about it in the corridor isn't going to help anyone. He forces himself calm, and as he does so there's a long metallic groan and everything is surrounded by rainbows. When it's over, the corridor is lit bronze by the light of a nearby star. 

His radio crackles. “Hi, this is Eli. Just thought you'd like to know it looks like we're going to refuel. Nothing to worry about.” 

“Thanks Eli.” Young goes to the infirmary to patch up what can be patched. 

~ 

Camile sees the first one just as Destiny sinks out of the corona and into the surface of the star itself. A light travels along the passage outside her door and there's a sound like distant bells. 

Her heart in her throat, stopping her breath, she rises from behind her desk and goes to look. 

It's vaguely humanoid – if you took a glass sculpture of a human as a mould and poured in molten golden flame. There is a suggestion of eyes, a face, as it turns to look at her. She controls her fear, holds her ground and says “Hello?” 

The liquid fire inside it swirls. Little licks of flame play along its hands and the crown of its head. It takes a step towards her, and then another. She braces herself... and it glides right past, trailing a hand through the wall. The track is not even hot when she touches it. She's still not happy.

 “Col. Young, this is Camile. I've just seen some kind of alien being in the hallway outside my room.” 

“Copy that Camile. We've... um. We've got dozens of them, apparently. I'm heading up to the bridge now. I'll meet you there.” 

A moment later, his voice comes through the PA, as calm as ever it is. “This is Young. Some of you may have noticed we have visitors on board. They do not seem to be hostile, but let's keep it that way. Do not provoke them. Do not engage.” 

Bona fide aliens have brought even Rush out of the walls. When Camile comes level with Young, just outside the bridge door, Rush is there already, sitting in the command chair, poring with delighted intensity over a screen of scrolling data. 

Young's step falters at the sight of him. Just a small thing – his face is as impassive as ever. Camile has worked hard at getting through the man's impenetrable defences in the past, but she still can't say definitely what this reaction is. Only that it is one. 

She's heard the rumours, of course. Who hasn't? Given the source, she'd been inclined to dismiss them as malicious until now. But something has taken away all the softness Rush has been slowly accumulating over the last months, and added back the coil of simmering violence beneath Young's cool.

 “So what have we got?” 

Rush doesn't look up. “It seems they're native to this star. At least, they have the same chemical composition as the gasses that surround us. We suspect the transparent substance they're encased in is some kind of environment suit, to enable them to survive in Destiny's freezing conditions – comparatively speaking, of course.” 

“Can we communicate with them?” Young is watching Rush, although that's nothing new. He's been watching Rush, silently, patiently, implacably, for as long as Camile's known them both. From the way Rush shifts in the seat and gives a crooked smile, he can feel it. But he's not giving in and he's not looking back. 

Camile's understanding of the last few years twists painfully within her, into something that would be compassion if it wasn't so annoyed. 

“Assuming the musical noises they're making are their speech, I'm running a database search to see if Destiny recognizes the language. Nothing yet. But from the way they're acting I would say they mean us no harm. They're just idly wandering around.” 

“Like tourists,” Camile observes. 

Rush actually looks up at her. Probably to drive home some sort of point. “Just so. I suppose it's not every day that a giant spaceship flies through your planet. I'd want to examine it too, were it me.” 

“So we just sit back and let them do whatever the hell they please?” 

“What do you suggest, Colonel? We pick a fight? Inside a star? Because I'm a mathematician and I can't count the number of ways that could go wrong.” 

Young blinks, slow, like he can't quite process what he's heard. He has a particular brutal, sullen smile that she recognises with a thrill of warning. She leans in and takes his elbow, half distraction and half restraint. It's like trying to hold on to the edge of a storm 

Watching the two of them relapse into the bitter, dangerous men they had once been brings it home how much they've both improved recently. How much she'd like the improvement to carry on.

 “We should wait until the database search is complete,” she says, “and then we'll know if we can talk to them or not. In the mean-time, Colonel, perhaps I could have a word?” 

Outside, some of the tension ebbs away, and he just looks tired again. Frayed, as he looked in the bad times. She leaves him in her room and returns with tea, because she too – she hopes – is getting better at her job in Destiny's hard school. 

He takes the cup gratefully and hunches over it, rubbing an open hand over his face in a gesture of distress. And really she doesn't know how she missed the signs of depression, of PTSD for so long – why she ever thought he was so strong she need have no compunctions about tearing him further down. 

“I know what it's like to come out,” she says. Which was not what she had meant to say, but on reflection is much more relevant. “It's scary. You feel as though your skin's been pulled off and your insides exposed to the world. Everyone's looking and there's nowhere you can go to escape. I wouldn't blame Rush too much for not being able to suffer it gracefully.” 

He gives a short, humourless laugh. “Is that what's going on with him?” But he raises his head and drinks his tea, so she counts it as a win. 

“I think so. Assuming Telford was right about the two of you?” 

“He was.” 

Bastard. From very personal experience, she detests people who out their colleagues for personal gain. “I can tell you that it will be unbearable for a short time, but it won't stay that way. People will adapt. Even some of those you think you've lost will come back once they have time to think things through.” She thinks of her parents, and then stops because it hurts too much. “Not all of them. But some. And afterwards you'll know where you stand.” 

Can she tell him that she thinks this is an enormous step up from the abuse of power that was fraternizing with one of his junior officers? “It's nice to think you have someone who's so obviously your equal.” She smiles to take away the sting, “Though I suppose it makes my life more difficult.” 

“How so?” 

“Well, we've just got this little triumvirate working well, and now the pair of you will be ganging up on me. My days of being listened to are probably numbered.” 

Young relaxes enough to lean back, to give her a smile that is not a veiled threat. “Are you kidding? You think Rush is going to step in and stop me if I'm being too ruthless? You think he gives a damn about the non-science civilians? You do a very different job from him. If anything you're proving right now I'm gonna need you more.” 

He's heavy and quiet and slow. She's always surprised when she's reminded that he's not stupid. 

“I gotta report to General O'Neill this evening,” he volunteers. “Now in theory there's not a damn thing he can do about this without breaking the law. In practice...” 

Camile knows perfectly well how little the law protects her in practice. She nods. “I'm sure my relationship with Sharon is the reason I've been passed over for promotion so many times. But of course I can't prove it in court, so they get away with it every time.” 

“Suppose he asks me to stand down and I refuse. Would the IOA step in to make sure we still had access to medical and technical support through the communications stones?” 

“I don't know.” Her pang of sympathy for him is complicated by the thought that this could be her chance. “Given how eager they are for control over Destiny, the IOA might first make it a condition that I take over instead.” 

This time, his laugh is genuine. “I hear command of this ship is so valuable they're pretty much giving it away to any idiot who falls through a wormhole... I could live with that.” 

She smiles, and for a moment they are companionable together, in a way she would never have foreseen when this began. Outside there continues to be an absence of screaming, alarms, or babble from the science team, so it seems their guests are still peaceably sightseeing. 

Young finishes his tea and puts the mug down. “You want to hit me with some HR questions, since we're here?” 

“There are always morale questions,” she picks up a pen to make this seem more official. “Now the joy of surviving stasis is over, the reality that we're three galaxies further away from Earth is sinking in. Many of the untrained civilians have nothing to occupy their minds with but regret. They feel underused and consequently undervalued.” 

“What were they doing on Icarus?” 

Camile raises her eyebrows, mildly annoyed that he's never thought of this before. “Cleaners. Janitors. Working in the laundry. Filing the paperwork. Very few of them have directly relevant skills.” 

“But they must have hobbies, right? Anything good there?” 

“What kind of good are we talking about?” 

He gives a huff of amused exasperation that echoes her own. “Anything. Are your janitors good with their hands? I want to make sure Brody starts training at least one apprentice asap, and it shouldn't be the geniuses who have to crawl around in the walls replacing fuses. We want to free up their time for stuff that makes better use of their brains.” 

Camile tries not to smile, but she's heard that very same rant from Rush – in slightly more florid language – and she's thinking _that's so sweet_. 

It's possible he catches her thought anyway because he switches track. “Any amateur dramatics in there? I'd for damn sure appreciate something better to watch in the evenings than the walls. We've all read every book on the ship by now, so – anyone write? Anyone play music who you could wrangle into a band? Sounds like we danced on Novus. Why not here?” 

He's talking about becoming a real community, something more than just a military outpost. She wonders for a moment why she hadn't thought of it herself and then realizes it's because it's one more step towards accepting that they are never going home. Towards accepting that they are home already. 

But the idea has caught her now. “I wonder if there's anyone who can make perfumes? Or turn some of the spare bedsheets into new clothes?” 

“Or knit socks.” 

Camile laughs. This is going to be quite a project to get off the ground, but the morale benefits to everyone on board should be huge. She's actually looking forward to making a start. “It's always socks with you.” 

“Yeah, well. My problems there have only got worse.” 

She's fond of him, she realizes. Impossible though that would have been to believe only six months ago. 

“But many of your other problems are much improved. I'll do what I can towards smoothing this over with the IOA and the SGC. None of them know what it's like out here, and these days my priority is us, not them.” 

“Thanks Camile,” he says quietly, looking more bruised than relieved. “I appreciate that.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which O'Neill doesn't ask and Young doesn't tell.

 “Let's get this clear from the start,” O'Neill holds up both hands, warding away any unpleasantness. “I don't want to know.” 

“No sir.” O'Neill is wily and deadpan and a little bit brilliant, and still Young can't believe that he's currently standing here in Daniel Jackson's body. It's... borderline blasphemous. But he's much happier at the thought of Jackson running around up there than he is about the general ever sending Telford again. 

Maybe Jackson'll translate the code from the beginning of time and solve the final mystery of the universe and gate everyone home while Young's gone. He has a four hour window, it seems more than long enough. 

“I hear you're requesting an exchange of engineers?” 

“Yes, sir. We figured out some Ancient tech we think could be of use here on Earth. Mr. Brody can write down what he knows while he's here, and whoever he exchanges with can examine the device while they're there. My medical officer tells me it's going to revolutionize burns treatment worldwide.” 

O'Neill raises his eyebrows. “Sweet. So you're bribing the tribunal?” 

“No sir, we just happened to figure it out yesterday.” 

“You are in deep trouble and you 'just happened' to turn up bearing gifts? It's a coincidence?” 

“Well, I specialize in those.” 

It's sass, and O'Neill knows it. He looks pleased. “Right. So now let's talk about the idiocy that's currently going on in my conference room. I don't know if anyone's told you up there, but someone has been talking to the Senate funding committee in charge of rustling up our wages, and has sold them on the idea that your ship is on a journey to meet God.” 

“That's one way of putting it, sir. Yes.” 

O'Neill gives him the look of a man who's personally destroyed a thousand gods and expects to take on a thousand more before dinner. “This funding committee currently contains four extreme right wing Christian fundamentalist senators. Who, thanks to some careful priming from our mutual friend Col. Telford are getting their panties in a wad about what could happen if the guy in charge of greeting God on behalf of the human race turns out to be a goddamned queer.” 

The general waves his hands, illustrating his point. “You know? They're talking wrath, plagues, floods, gnashing of teeth, that kind of thing.”

 “And you're thinking 50 billion dollars that potentially isn't coming your way in the next budget.” If this is the state of play, then handing over to Camille isn't going to wash either. Same problem. “You want me to step down in favour of Scott? He's a good Catholic boy, if that counts for anything with these people? I'm sure he could do the job if I was helping him.”

 “Everett, Everett,” O'Neill rolls his eyes. “You have got to get over this whole throwing yourself under the bus thing. I'm not ordering you to step down. I'm ordering you to go in there and tell them there's absolutely no truth to the rumour, and the Destiny of the universe is in safe, heterosexual hands.” 

“I can do that,” Young's had quite a bit of practice at lying about his private life, and no objection to doing it again to these people. He's pretty sure Rush would approve, might even get a kick out the idea of him standing in front of a table full of senators, capitalizing on his own reputation for blunt truthfulness, and the borrowed aura of Jackson's outstanding honesty, to thoroughly deceive them all. 

“Make it convincing. Because, you know, there's a recession on, and we really need the money.” 

~ 

Telford's there. Young has to remind himself firmly that punching Telford out, while in Jackson's body, would not end well for anyone. 

The senators are senators. Overfed, overdressed, over-aware of their own importance. But he's surprised to see Chloe's mother among them. Grieving wife takes up heroic statesman's political career to save her daughter and honour her husband's memory? Good for her. Chloe will be happy to hear it. 

He stands at parade rest in the centre of the room, with all their eyes on him, as O'Neill leans forward and gathers them to order. “I want to assure everyone here that this _is_ Col. Young and not Daniel – I explained about the stones, right? I've spent _years_ trying to teach Daniel to stand like that. No success. 

“Also I want to point out that you do not have any right to ask this question. Col. Young is not in any way obliged to answer it, and we are both doing this as a special favour to you because we're just that great.” 

He fixes Telford with a meaningful glare. “I am going to be very personally pissed off if I ever see a repeat of this kind of thing again.” 

O'Neill is old-school – the kind of commander who used “don't ask, don't tell” as a way to protect his people in a world that was out to get them. Young knows – that's where he learned it from. 

“So,” the general gives everyone a smile of thinly veiled contempt. “As a special one-time-only offer. Everett, are you fucking Nicholas Rush?” 

Most of the senators smirk. Young guesses that the ones he really has to convince are the four who have simultaneously recoiled, shocked at the general's language. 

“No sir.” 

“By which I mean, have you ever had carnal relations with a member of your own sex?” 

“No sir.” 

“Are you in fact as straight as the proverbial arrow?” 

“Yes sir.” 

“Great.” O'Neill brushes the dust from his hands and stands. “Well, I think that clears everything up. So. Supper?” 

“With all due respect, sir, he's lying.” 

David is losing it, Young thinks with a flare of something that's almost concern. Maybe the brainwashing is re-establishing itself and his own personality is being eaten up by someone else's malice. Maybe he's just falling apart, the way Young did over the past couple of years, when he had lived through more horror than he could force himself to take. But David wouldn't do this – wouldn't get angry, wouldn't openly challenge O'Neill's authority like this in front of a bunch of outsiders – if he was himself. 

“I saw you,” David leans across the table, looking wrongfooted and furious, like he really didn't expect Young to deny it all with such a straight face. “In the infirmary, I saw the pair of you--” 

“I don't know what you think you saw, David, but I'd nearly died, and Rush hugged me.” Young shrugs, dismissively. “So that was a little unexpected, but he's an eccentric kind of guy. If you read something else into that, it says more about your mind than my morals.” 

“You nearly died?” O'Neill asks sharply. “And you were going to report this when?”

“Right now sir. I wasn't aware this... uh... _meeting_ had been scheduled until I arrived.” 

The general is still standing, as if he can dismiss the whole incident by force of will, but no one else is budging. 

“There's been an attack?” Senator Armstrong leaves off fiddling with her hair and wakes up. Her face is nervous and drawn, there's a puffiness about her eyes that speaks of too much alcohol and weeping. His heart goes out to her. 

“Chloe is fine, Ma'am. There _was_ an attack, but it was repelled and the enemy eliminated. We had a couple of injuries – all to military personnel – but no fatalities. The ship sustained some damage, which is now being repaired.” 

“And you're going to tell me she was never in any danger?” 

“No ma'am. It's a frontier situation, we're often in danger. But we're handling it.” 

“I'm going to wind up this meeting and take this report. So, ladies and gentlemen--” O'Neill makes another attempt to shut this thing down, but a distinguished looking white-haired senator on Telford's right – Ian Olding, one of the four – jumps in. 

“So that's it? You expect us to just accept a flat denial and walk away? We take his word for it, no investigation, no corroboration, no--” 

“Yes. None of those things.” O'Neill's edge of unflappable bonhomie is getting a little jagged. “This witch hunt is frankly illegal and we do not have to tolerate--” 

“Fifty billion dollars buys a lot of toleration, in my experience.” Olding manages to say this with a beatific smile, which only makes it worse. “But we're not asking you to prove a negative. We just want to visit the ship we're sending to meet God so that we can see for ourselves it's not going to let us all down. Is that so very much to ask?” 

David's smiling too now, and Young's gut punched as he always is when someone puts so much thought into being a little shit, when they could have used all that energy and cleverness for something constructive. He sees how it's meant to play out – the senators go to Destiny where he's told everyone the truth, they find out that he lied to them, that maybe O'Neill lied to them too, and Telford looks like the only person at the SGC they can trust. And Young can't say no without it being obvious he's got something to hide. 

“Senator Armstrong and Senator Michaels both died aboard Destiny,” O'Neill's voice is as devoid of humour as he's ever heard it. The general doesn't appreciate being played either. “If you want to add to those numbers I'm going to get you to sign a waiver that it's over my protest.” 

“I take full responsibility,” Olding's smile is a thousand watts of insincerity. 

“I mentioned the ship had been damaged, sir.” So, this is going to happen, but Young can at least buy time so he can get his forces prepared before it does. “I'd rather not risk the senators lives until it's been repaired. Also, we had an alien incursion earlier today. They don't seem to have done any damage but I want to sweep the ship to make sure of that before I let anyone else aboard.” 

“Busy week?” 

“Aren't they all?” 

“OK then,” O'Neill beckons in the cluster of Tok'ra who have been gathering outside the door. “We only have the two stones, so lets say Senator Olding and--” 

“Senator Armstrong, sir? So she could see how Chloe's doing.” 

Armstrong looks up at him and nods, half afraid and half grateful. Olding looks like he's swallowed a lemon, and maybe that's why the meeting ends in smiles. 

“You've got three days,” says O'Neill in private later. “I tell you, politicians. I'd rather have Goa'uld. At least you can shoot the snakes.” 

“What I don't understand, sir, is what Telford expects to get out of this. Worst comes to the worst, I step down in favour of Scott. What good does that do David? Still doesn't make it his.” 

“Oh man,” O'Neill laughs. “You mean I didn't tell you this part? You know the communication stone protocol can be disrupted so the connection can't be switched off?” 

“Yes... sir...” David's full plan dawns on him in a slow crescendo of horror that the general's clever gaze follows mockingly. 

“Yeah, you get it. If Telford makes a good case for replacing you, we just swap you two on the stones permanently. He gets the ship, you get that retirement to Earth you wanted. It costs the senate nothing and everybody wins.” 

David, in his body, in charge of Nick. It's his first thought. Rush is the toughest bastard he's ever met, in his own way, but at the same time he's also one of the most vulnerable. Young does not want to contemplate the kind of shit that would go down in Nick's head before he inevitably killed Telford or was killed by him, using Young's body as the murder weapon. 

No, no, he's never going to subject Nick to that. One good shot to the head will solve that problem, and Young's been contemplating suicide long enough to have all the details already worked out. So that's his backup plan. But he's not going to let it get that far because it's not all about Nick, it's about his other people too, everyone on Destiny whom he has sworn to protect and bring home. 

“David will destroy that ship,” he tries not to let his throat close, but it's hard. “It's old and fragile. The power politics on board are delicate and David is gung-ho and reckless and bullying. My civilians won't stand for it, neither will my scientists. You're looking at a long term future of mutiny and retribution while the ship falls apart around them.” 

“Well then,” O'Neill's not disagreeing, which speaks volumes. “You'd better make sure it doesn't happen, hadn't you?”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scott and Chloe are not just pretty faces.

“Welcome back, sir,” says Scott with a smile whose shade of uncomfortable is not lost on Young. 

“Still here, lieutenant? I thought Jackson would have gated us all back by now.” 

Scott's discomfort passes. He lapses into normality as though reassured by Young's flippancy that nothing important has changed. Out of them all, he was the one Young had expected to have a problem, so he's more than happy to take Scott's unwavering presence as tacit approval and move on. 

“Well, he did figure out a way of talking to the aliens, sir. Managed to persuade them we were just passing through their star and were not a threat. It was pretty neat. Apparently they had been thinking of getting into the engines and blowing us up, but he convinced them not to.” 

It's nice to know SG1's legend lives on. “Well, I guess that was the good news. D'you want the bad?” 

“Sir?” 

“We have three days to prepare for an inspection by Senator Olding and Senator Armstrong of the SGC funding committee, whom we will have to convince we are fit to meet God.” 

“You're kidding, sir?” Scott falls in beside him as he heads for Chloe's room. 

“I wish I was. And if we don't convince them we are shiny examples of moral perfection, they're going to swap me out with Telford permanently.” 

“I'm sorry?” 

“You heard me.” 

Scott stops in the middle of the corridor, dumbstruck. “They'd do that? They'd steal your body and think that was somehow _better_ in God's eyes than whatever this thing is you have going on with Rush?” 

He likes the indignation. Now there's a conviction he can work with. “Well, I'm no expert on what God wants, lieutenant. You were raised Catholic, right?” 

“Yes sir.” 

“So you know what these people are looking for. You can speak the language. I'm going to want you to show them around and convince them we're doing good.” 

Scott backs into a wall and leans there, like the burden Young's just put on him is literally heavy and he needs help standing up. Young's about to make it worse, but that's OK. Scott's seen him when he was completely unravelled, Scott's picked him up before and forced him to shape up. The kid hates being forced to take responsibility, but when he can't get out of it he handles it just fine. 

“And to make it clear, I already told them there was no thing between me and Rush. So you're going to have to lie to them about that and make sure they don't hear any different from the rest of the crew.” 

Scott's jaw drops. “How am I supposed to...? Wait a minute, you said 'Senator Armstrong'?” 

“Yup,” there's nothing like sharing the angst. “Chloe's mom.” 

“Chloe's mom's coming here and I'm showing her around?!” 

“When things were bad for Eli and his mom, we invited her aboard. I figured Chloe's been through some tough times, she deserves as much.” 

Scott nods emphatically, “That's true. But you know, if you're talking strict evangelical Christians they're going to be just as angry that Chloe and I are... and we're not married. And I had a child out of wedlock, and I...” 

Young smiles, because serious as this situation is, it's kind of ridiculous too. “I always thought that was the point – that none of us are good enough, so we shouldn't judge. But maybe things have changed since I went to Sunday school. At any rate, you're the most senior, most Christian guy I've got, so you're on point.” 

“Are you _punishing me_ for something?” 

Young is sufficiently confident that this is a joke to laugh a little, but he hears the plea in it too. He didn't volunteer to be Scott's surrogate father, that remains true, but every 2iC should be a good friend and he's inclined to think that they are getting there, Scott and he. 

“It's me they're investigating, right? So I can't do it myself. Now listen, you forced me to step up when I didn't think I could do it any more. I'm grateful for that. So I'm returning the favour. I trust you to handle this, because I know you can.” 

Chloe's lying on her bed when they come in. She has one of Rush's little notebooks full of formulae propped on her knee, but she still looks lost in the big room, an echo of too many times when they couldn't be sure if she was still human, when they didn't know what was looking out from behind her eyes. “Hi Colonel, Matt.” 

“Should I go?” Scott asks behind him, hovering in the open door. 

“I'm not staying long, and I imagine you two will have a lot to discuss afterwards.” Young fights off the usual wave of guilt at Chloe's quiet, solemn acceptance of whatever it is he's about to say. While he's trying to think of a way to approach this that doesn't start with 'now that I'm not going to have to kill you after all...' Chloe takes the ball out of his hands. 

“I heard about you and Rush.” 

“You and the entire universe,” he smiles. 

“It's cool,” she says. “But don't use it as another way to hurt him, because I think he's been through enough.” 

Young perches on the edge of the table and lets himself be glad that Nick has someone in his corner as fierce as he himself is. “It's kind of about that that I've come. This is not playing well on Earth and the whole situation has become political.” 

“I can see how it would,” she props herself further up against the wall, looking alert. 

“Politics is your bag.” 

Chloe puts the notebook down and smooths the bedspread around it with almost exactly the same expression of fear and yearning her mother wore earlier. “I was only my father's assistant.” 

“ _Only?_ That's a hell of a lot more experience than anyone else on board. Plus, you came up with the idea that got us Eli, and you drove it past all those people who thought it was stupid, am I right?” 

“Yes.” 

“So you're good at it. Now, I'm never touching the communication stones again, which means I need someone else to send to Earth to talk to the politicians on Destiny's behalf. You're the obvious candidate for the job.” 

“What about... what about the math?” she says, shakily, but there's a light behind her eyes that hasn't been there for a while. 

“No reason you can't do both. But you have obvious talents and training in politics that this ship sorely needs.” He shrugs and gestures Scott to come further in. 

“I didn't tell you this,” he says when Scott has come to sit by Chloe's feet on the bed, “But O'Neill lied too. It's not going to be just me against the wall if it comes out. So I need to put my best people on the job, and that's you.” 

~ 

It's been a long time since Chloe stretched her political wings. She's afraid at first that she'll have lost all her metaphorical feathers – that she'll have forgotten how to fly. She loves it, the delicacy of it, the wheels within wheels, but Destiny's crew has always seemed to regard politics as a waste of time. When she arrived she quickly learned to believe that all her skills were useless. She's been scrambling to find something else to do that isn't damsel-in-distress or sacrificial-victim ever since. 

After Scott fills her in on what he knows – her mother, here? Able to see her in the flesh? That will be awesome – she visits Earth and talks to General O'Neill to get the full picture. She gets coffee and pastries and a good deal of disturbing context, spends several hours on a borrowed SGC laptop reading up on the personalities and platforms involved, and sets up a series of meetings with the moderate senators tomorrow and the day after. 

Currently it seems they are willing to follow the lead of Olding and his three stooges because they have no real reason not to. But if she can persuade them otherwise, she might be able to isolate the extremists and swing a majority vote towards leaving Destiny well alone. 

It's ridiculous, in this day and age, to be ousting people from their jobs just for being bi. And even though she did try to get rid of Young herself once, that was before Destiny made it very clear she had chosen him to command. It was before Young and Rush ended up on the same side. Young's tried so hard ever since... And Telford, he just comes in, throws his weight around until it gets difficult, and then he runs away. 

Once she's done everything she can on Earth for the day – it's midnight and no one's answering her calls – she returns to the ship and goes looking for Rush. He's in the maths corridor, but he's not alone, she can hear them arguing as she walks up. Although arguing may not be the most accurate word for a dialogue where one part is silence. 

“Did I miss the memo where you told me this was over?” 

She wonders if she should knock, though the door is open. If she should cough, or drop something, just to let them know she's there. 

“Because I... I'd just like to know if what I'm fighting for still exists. 

“Damn it, Rush!” 

There's a scuffle. She darts forward instinctively in time to see Young's hand around Rush's elbow, knuckles white, Rush's smile half concealed behind his hair, his face tipped away and his voice light and pleasant and mocking. 

“Well it makes no difference now, does it? We set this little avalanche in motion and it'll roll right over us regardless.” 

“It makes a hell of a difference to me.” 

Rush looks up, his expression belligerent, his mouth open, he's going to say something, but she never finds out what it is because he sees her watching and recoils, pulling his arm out of Young's grasp, walking away, half way down the corridor, his back to her. 

Young turns and gives her a look so expressionless it could have been carved on a statue. “Chloe. Good day?” 

“One or two promising leads,” she's glad to bring at least an iota of good news to this bad conversation. “But maybe I could have a word with Dr. Rush?” 

“Yeah,” he moves aside, passes her in the doorway, stilted, hurt, and not entirely successful at hiding it. “Good luck with that.” 

Rush waits until he's long gone before he turns around. He looks old today, greying and thin, with eyes like two black holes. 

“Do you have to be a bastard all the time?” Chloe says, knowing it will make him smile. 

“How else would you know it was me?” He walks down the corridor, scuffing his fingers through the chalk lines. It's always an interesting place – they're inside his head, in a way, inside his curiosity and his logic and the way he models the world. It's elegant and its fearless. She doesn't think Col. Young can see it, but she thinks he'd like it if he could. 

“Is this what you've always been fighting about, you and him? You've been fighting because you like each other really? You've been pulling his pigtails to get him to notice you, all this time?” 

This succeeds in getting the laugh she was angling for earlier. “Bloody hell, Chloe, you make it sound like a soap opera with cheerleaders. We are going to have to talk about your frames of reference because this is...” 

“This is one hundred percent accurate and you know it.” 

“Sixty three at most.” He doesn't ever hide how he softens with her, how much easier he finds it to be open, even gentle, with the women on board. It's only the other men he has a problem with. 

“He really cares about you, doesn't he?” 

“I'm not talking about this. Not even to you.” 

“Did he ask for your help?” she knows better than to go any closer, just moves away from the doorway so he doesn't feel trapped, “Did he tell you about the senators visiting and the general maybe swapping him out with Telford permanently?” 

“He may have mentioned something about it. I wasn't following. Politics and people, well it's not really my arena, is it? I've been thinking it's about time we opened up corridor E34--” 

“He's already said he won't touch the stones again, but you know the military. If they decide to make the swap they'll march him there at gunpoint and force him to.” Chloe isn't going to let him deflect this one. She brushes his attempts and his stillness aside and powers on relentlessly. 

“What do you think he'll do then? I mean I don't know him as well as you do, but it seems to me that the colonel is always on the look out for a reason to kill himself. And you're going to do nothing to prevent that? You're just going to let it happen and then use it as an excuse to be horrible to people afterwards?” 

“You take that back!” Rush flings down the chalk at her feet and paces forward. He's so furious that she's a little scared of him. “I had no control over what happened to Gloria. I had no hand in what happened to Mandy. I don't have any power against a horde of chattering bullies on the other side of the universe.” 

The suicide thing was a long shot. She hadn't expected it to strike home so hard – she'd only said it to needle him into giving up _something_. But this... that he's accepted that Young is dead already? He's distancing himself so it won't hurt so much, pretending everything's fine and he never had anything to lose? She wants to press her hands over her mouth to keep in sympathy and tears, but forces speech out instead, like water from her lungs. 

“But you do. This time, you have the power to make it stop before it's too late.” 

Rush turns his back so that he's no longer threatening her. “There's always too many of them. They're always too strong.” 

If he was anyone else, Chloe would hug him. She wants to, has to fight down the impulse by sliding down the corridor wall and hugging her own knees instead. It's the right thing to do, he turns around and hunkers down beside her, worried about her. 

She looks up at him as she did when he pulled her out of the tank, like they're the last two humans together in a hostile universe. They're allies, deep in the bone, axiomatic and unchanging. “You got Telford off this ship once already, so obviously you _could_ do it again if you wanted to, senators or not.” 

He nods, acknowledging both the point and the trust, his brittleness smoothing and his arrogance waking up at the reminder of what they have already survived. 

“Are you really going to let Col. Young handle it all on his own this time? It's nice to know you trust him that much. I mean, to leave something this important up to him. You must really respect him after all.” 

Rush drops his head into his hands and shakes it, laughing. “I see what you're doing there with your reverse psychology, Miss Harvard Scholar.” 

“Is it working, Crazy Uncle Nick?” 

He gives a sickle of a smile, turns his body to face the wall of equations. His eyes are still doubtful, but his shoulders have loosened. “I don't know. Maybe.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which my fic almost passes the Bechdel test (but possibly fails on a technicality.)

Suddenly it's dark. There's an all pervading hum of engines and a ripe locker-room stink of sweat and unwashed clothes that passes in a breath as her host body filters it out. She opens someone else's eyes to see dank, greasy metal walls and low lights. A compact mirror on the desk shows a female soldier with an angular, beautiful face and fine eyes. Her name tag reads 'James'.

There's a movement behind her and her daughter is there. Her daughter who she hasn't seen in the flesh for five years, who she hadn't believed until this moment honestly was still alive. “Chloe?”

“Mom?”

A long time passes in tears and hugging. Chloe's still wearing one of the outfits from the bag she packed for her, all that time ago in the sunshine of her white painted bedroom, when they were a family. When her daughter had a father, and she had a husband. When her dreams were still small and kind.

“Oh God, Chloe, it's really you!” Her daughter is alive. Not just a familiar set of mannerisms in someone else's body, but her own flesh, beloved and missed.

Olding gets up. It's odd to see his tilt of the head, his ever-present smile, on the face of the handsome young African-American man beside her, whose uniform reads 'Becker'. 

The little room is full of people. She recognises Young from the files she's been allowed to see since forcing her way onto the funding committee. He's a heavy-set, harsh looking man, shorter than she expected. Nor, when he shakes her hand, had she expected to get an impression of diffidence, of a kind of retiring quiet. He shakes Olding's hand too, gives a self-effacing smile. 

“Senators, welcome to Destiny. Since at least part of the reason why you're here is to check me out, I'm going to get out of your way and let you speak to my people without me. Senator Olding, Lt. Scott is my second in command, he can take you wherever you want to go and answer your questions. Senator Armstrong, I'm presuming you'll be happy with Chloe.”

Patricia knows she's supposed to be investigating the morale and morals of the ship, but frankly that was only ever an excuse. What she really wants is to get her child back, to rescue her lost princess. 

“Should we go round together?” Lt. Scott looks at Chloe for guidance. He's a good looking boy, in a wholesome sort of way. If he's the 'Matt' whom Chloe talks so much about, she should get to know him. But not yet. There are more important things to be sure of first.

“First I'd like to speak to my daughter in private, lieutenant. You two go ahead. We'll catch up with you later.”

“This is my room.” Chloe shows her in with the same nervous pride with which she once showed her her college dorm. It's both reassuring and jarring. She didn't expect Chloe to look so comfortable here. “The Ancients were very much like us, apparently, with their beds and furniture and stuff. You can see the FTL trails through two windows, and the stars when we drop out.”

The worst thing is she doesn't even sound like she's bravely making the best of things. She sounds genuinely enthusiastic.

“I'm so sorry,” Patricia says, interrupting. “You must think we've given up on trying to bring you home, but that's not true. It's why I took up your father's career. So I could make sure they didn't just forget.”

“Mom,” Chloe says, flinging herself down on her bed as though she's still a teen. “It's so great to see you here on Destiny. I miss you, and I've wanted to show you--”

“I miss you too, sweetie. And we are going to get you home. Col Telford is very committed to that promise. I'd go so far as to say he's driven, and that's what we want, because at the moment they don't seem to be trying very hard.”

Chloe pulls the ends of her sleeves down over her hands. Her cuffs are fraying and her hair is dishevelled, but she doesn't seem to notice. She snorts in a very unladylike manner. “Telford is so driven that he's already nearly killed us all, twice. If Col Young's more cautious it's because he doesn't want to lose anyone or blow up the ship.” She pushes back her hair as if to make her sincerity more obvious. “I wouldn't feel safe with Telford.”

Patricia sits down on an alien chair in an alien room millions of lightyears from Earth. It's an extraordinary feeling, part echoing loneliness, part freedom. For a moment, it almost subsumes the frustration and the sensation that everything is going horribly wrong. “But I have to do something!”

“Not this,” Chloe folds herself back off the bed, still throwing Patricia off kilter by looking neither tearful nor grateful. “We're good here now. All of that early stuff I told you about, the unrest and the mistrust, it's all over. Col Young's doing a good job, we're starting to get to grips with how the ship works, we have a really exciting mission to fulfil... Please don't wreck it all now we've finally got it together. I don't know what Telford's told you, but he--”

“He hasn't told us anything that you didn't tell me before. That Young's violent, that he's immoral in his personal life and ineffectual in his job. Have you forgotten that during that first year, you told me you didn't feel safe with Young? If that's changed, are you really sure it's not some form of Stockholm syndrome? You've been stuck here with him for so long.”

“Did you know that Telford was a Lucian Alliance spy who helped them take over this ship and nearly shoot us all?”

It's a good thing she's sitting down, her knees weaken at the thought. “That part he didn't tell us. Oh sweetie, you've been through so much. I never wanted this for you.”

Chloe looks at her almost as though she's disappointed. It's not how Patricia imagined this conversation would go at all. 

“When Eli's mom came on board,” Chloe says, with her arms crossed and her chin up, “she was happy for him. She said she could tell he was doing great things with his life, and she was proud of him.”

It is disappointment. Patricia is astonished and angry to hear it – she's put so much work, so much passion into the quest to get Chloe back. Chloe is not supposed to be one of the many things standing in her way.

“I'm doing great things here too.” Chloe is pacing now, the way Alan paced when he was working on one of his speeches, when he was trying to fit a grand principle or a shining conviction into an effective form of words. It makes Patricia miss both of them, Alan because he used to do that so often, Chloe because she never did it before. 

“I'm a pioneer, mom. I'm an explorer, an emissary from humankind to the rest of the universe. The chief scientist on this ship trusts me to do the calculations that are too difficult for him, and Col. Young trusts me to be Destiny's political representative to Earth on his behalf.”

Chloe fixes Patricia with a gaze as pointed as any spear. “I don't need rescuing. I'm tired of you talking like I'm some kind of victim, and I would very much like it if you took me as seriously as the people here do. Because I am the one who has been out here all this time and I am the one who knows what it's really like.”

It's too late. Patricia pinches her nose and mouth shut to keep in the distress. It's already too late. Her bright-eyed debutante has already grown up and she has already missed the last few years of Chloe's childhood. She has lost her, as she lost Alan, and now she's alone. “Is there somewhere on this ship I can get a drink?”

Chloe hugs her again, as though she's the parent. “No mom. Can I... can I show you something? It might upset you but I think you'd be glad in the end.”

Patricia lets her breath out in a little sob, because they both left her, and she doesn't know what else there is left to do. But she nods and Chloe guides her down some more low-lit, chilly metal tubes, up in an elevator to a large wall panel with a clocklike device on it. It's a door, as it turns out, which whirrs and clanks and rises up into the ceiling when Chloe hits the control.

There's an anteroom, and then they're in some sort of aircraft... spacecraft... cleaner than the rest of the ship, its gold detailing gleaming in the blue-green swirl of elf-lights that dance outside the cockpit windows. It isn't as claustrophobic as the rest of the ship, there's a sense of peace and light, and she thinks it would be calming to sit in the pilot's seat and look out into the wonders of the universe as they sailed past.

“This is where daddy died.”

Oh God! It's like a spear through the heart. She can't breathe, can't hold herself together, because no. He's not really dead. He's not. Nobody saw him die, nobody saw the body, nobody--

“I watched it, through the hatch – I couldn't get it open.” Chloe is crying now too, but Patricia can't look. She moves past the chair “He was sitting right there,” and looks determinedly out of the window, putting it all at her back.

“It was peaceful,” Chloe gasps. “He didn't struggle. He did it for all of us. I think he was glad that it could be him and not someone else.”

No. She's not looking, she's not believing this. He's not gone.

“I told them he wanted to be cremated, so we committed his body to a star. Col Young read the service and said that we owed it to him to survive and carry on his legacy. It was very beautiful. I wish you could have been there, you would have... I thought it helped.”

No. She didn't come here for an ending. Not to give it all up, not to acknowledge that Alan's gone and Chloe doesn't need her any more. What about what she wants? Who says she has to let go of everything she loves and start all over again?

She leans her forehead on the glass and weeps until the tears hit the window. When she opens her eyes again they're sore and puffy, and a deep golden light is reflecting off the dark mirror of the porthole from something behind her.

She turns, and for a split second she sees an angel standing behind the chair, its hand resting where Alan died. All kinds of critical processes she didn't know she was running in her normal state of mind stop, and she's blank in awe as she takes it in. It looks like a pillar of fire in the shape of a man, and its great golden wings are outspread from wall to wall.

“Mom?” says Chloe in a concerned tone. 

She blinks and it's gone.

“Did you see it?”

“Did I see what?”

Patricia reaches out to touch the back of the seat where its hand had rested, but the place is no warmer than anywhere else. She feels again like everything has stopped so thoroughly that now there's a chance for new things to begin. “Are you sure there's nowhere I can get a drink?”

“We could have a cup of tea in the mess.” Chloe can't have seen it. Her world doesn't seem to have rocked at all, she's still looking puzzled and worried, as though Patricia is finally losing the plot. And maybe she is, or maybe she's just accepting that it was lost five years ago, and perhaps it's time to find another.

“I think I'd like that.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which all the Christians on board disapprove of each other.

 OK, Olding is officially creeping Scott out. He's shown the senator around the gate room, the control interface room, the shuttles, the quarters and the observation deck. Olding has carried on smiling the whole time, carried on being just so nice with his level voice and his old fashioned politeness and the steely remorselessness with which he hasn't listened to a word Scott's said. 

“So, uh, we got the mess and the bridge to go. You got a preference for which one you'd like--” 

“There doesn't seem to be anyone around,” Olding stops to look pointedly up and down the corridor. “Let me guess. They've all been told to stay out of my way, so that I only have a pre-prepared source from whom to get my information.” 

He's kind of half right. “The corridors are always empty,” Scott tries to explain, “except at shift change, because--” 

Olding nods understandingly. “Of course they are. This priest you said who raised you? You said he was an alcoholic?” 

Scott _hadn't_ said that, and he kind of resents this nice, polished, superior guy for putting it that way. Father Byrne was worth fifteen of him. He tries to shrug it off. “He had a bit of a problem, yes, but--” 

“Why didn't he turn to God to solve it? What problem in his life could have been so terrible that he had to take it to the bottle instead of to the Bible for a solution?” 

 _Oh fuck you,_ Scott thinks. _Yes_ , _I bet_ you're _such a good man that you'd raise someone else's kid for sixteen years while you were being the trashcan for the problems of everyone else in the fucking parish, day in day out. I bet_ you'd _do that without it taking any kind of toll._  

“I don't know.” He thinks he manages not to let any of his indignation show, but it's hard. “You know? When you're that age, you don't think to ask. And afterwards it's too late.” 

“Were you very selfish as a child?” 

 _Humility,_ Scott thinks. _Gotta be humble_. Though frankly he's not sure if this guy would spot a Christian virtue if it trod on him. It's got to be gift-wrapped in his own style and couched in his own pet phrases before he knows what he's seeing. Even then he probably wouldn't believe it from a Catholic. “Yeah, I guess I was. I'm working on doing better, but it's a struggle sometimes, you know?”

 Olding gives him a look that suggests he doesn't know. “Most people are going to be in the mess, aren't they? We'll go there. In the mean time, you were telling me about Col. Young's wife? They're divorced now, yes? How did that happen again?” 

They've been through this one three times already. Scott's on the verge of losing his temper and saying something rude for real but, as they pass the door to the CI room, Eli leans out and gives him a conspiratorial eyebrow wiggle. Eli waits until Olding has gone by and Scott has seized the chance to look back, then he raises the piece of deck plating under his arm and flashes Scott the message chalked there. 

 _Nobody Expects the Spanish Inquisition._  

Scott turns his laugh into a full-on coughing fit, and by the time he's finished he's recaptured his good humour. “That was Telford's fault,” he says, tired of pulling punches. “There's something wrong with that guy. First he steals the colonel's wife and now he's trying to take his ship? I think maybe it's him you ought to be investigating.” 

It makes about as much impression as it did the last two times. Olding just smiles at him, with a smile Scott increasingly wants to shove down his throat. “You let me worry about that.” 

The mess is... Damn, the mess is a disaster waiting to happen. On one table Young's sitting with Camile, TJ, Volker and Brody apparently discussing an Ancient-to-English translation program for the medical database. On another, with their backs pointedly turned, Michaels, Greer and Baras are sitting together with some of the marines. Everyone looks up when Scott and Olding come in, and Michaels gets the look of an eager schoolboy, who's just raised his hand to answer the teacher's question. 

Clearly Olding's inside-out, because where anyone else would smile at things finally going his way, his face goes solemn, gravely concerned. 

“Lt. Scott here has been gamely feeding me the party line,” he addresses the room gently. “But I worry that his account is incomplete. Is there anyone here who would like to talk to me more privately, in confidence, about anything you feel moved to share with us, back on Earth?” 

Michaels is about to rise, but Greer gets there first. “I have some things I think you ought to know.” 

The only one on Col. Young's table not looking concerned is Young himself, and that's only because the colonel's perfected a pretty flawless poker face over the years. It's not doing him any good, mind you, because the others are making it damn obvious that this is not part of the plan. 

“What's your name, son?” 

“Ronald Greer, sir. Master sergeant.” Greer moves away from his table, his chin up, his stance cocky and challenging as always. 

“Do you have a faith, Master sergeant?” 

“I'm Baptist, sir.” 

“Finally.” Olding breathes out, in relief, like he's come home. His smile reignites and he turns it on the colonel, who is watching and evaluating the way he does when confronted with any new threat. “I presume you have no objection to me exchanging Lt. Scott for Sgt. Greer as my guide?” 

Young and Greer exchange a look, and Scott can't read what they're thinking. But he knows what Young's long blink and duck of the head mean – that's the colonel conceding an argument, letting the other guy win. “None at all.” 

Greer doesn't acknowledge Scott as he passes, no fist-bump, no friendly slap to the shoulder. He's stiff, holding it back, and he falls in at Olding's side like the perfect soldier. They're out the door before Scott can react. Nothing he can do about it anyway. 

Feeling numb, he slips into a spare seat on the colonel's table. “Sir!” 

Patience is one of Young's strengths – the ability to outlast disaster, to wait for the chances that inevitably come around by which it can be reversed. He's not reacting to this one except by being vigilant for the next opportunity to turn things back his way. “Do you trust Greer, Lieutenant?” 

And what kind of a question is that? Despite all appearances, “Yes. Of course.” 

Young nods, getting up to go to his bridge shift. “So do I.”

~

“There's been a serious allegation raised on Earth about your commanding officer's morals. I presume that's what you want to speak to me about?” 

Master Sergeant Greer seems to vibrate with barely leashed energy even while he's standing to attention. He's a fine-looking young man, though he comes across as too aggressive for Ian's tastes. The tilt of his smile is like a permanent taunt thrown out at the universe. Olding can't fault him for being confident, but he does wonder if it tips that little bit further into pride. 

They are in one of the small empty rooms just outside the mess, bare but for a panel in the wall whose purpose he does not know. 

“I don't do well with non-specifics, sir. Who's accusing who of what?” 

Olding doesn't like being forced to say the words – if you touch pitch are you not blackened? It feels distasteful, immoral, even to acknowledge that it exists, and that he is in the same ship with it. It's only God's loving-kindness that must have prevented Him from destroying this ship as He did the city of Sodom, and who knows how long the Lord's patience will last?

 Nevertheless, for the greater good of all the righteous people on board, he forces it out. “If you must have it said baldly, Col Telford has accused Col Young and Dr. Rush of being... homosexuals. In a sexual relationship together. To your knowledge, is this true?” 

Greer checks his watch. “I have a shift on the bridge. Can we talk on the way?” 

“If you must.” It's Olding's impression that Greer is not capable of insincerity, so he's willing to let the young man approach such a sensitive subject in whatever way makes him feel comfortable. The concession seems to pay off. 

“It's true,” Greer says, as they proceed down another of the endless maze of corridors, “that Col Young went through a bad patch when we got on board. He was angry and low and he made some bad decisions.” 

“Such as sleeping with this Dr Rush?” A temporary weakness now repented and abandoned would not be so bad. But the brazenness with which the man had flat-out denied it hardly spoke to genuine remorse. 

Greer stops for a moment mid step, the suddenness of it as emphatic as a shout. “No, sir. That would not be one of them.” 

Greer chews his lip, his eyes downcast. “I don't like to speak ill of a superior officer, sir, but I've been giving this a lot of thought, and I feel moved to tell you that you are being used, not by God but by Col Telford. You are being used to further the guy's selfish ambition and maybe even treason. I can't stand by and see you wreck your career by believing a guy who's spent half his working life lying to everyone for his own ends.” 

There is nothing but honesty and concern on the young soldier's face. Olding can't sense a falsehood there at all. It rocks him. He has no objection to attracting public displeasure for being God's knife – for cutting out what needs to be cut. But his blood boils at the idea that someone might be using his reputation for purity to further their own agenda. “What makes you think so?” 

Greer gives a bittersweet smile and starts walking again. “Two postings back,” he says, “Telford was undercover with the Lucian Alliance. We thought he was on our side, just pretending to be one of them, but when they plan an attack on the base where I was serving with Col. Young, Telford doesn't warn us. They come and we get slaughtered – not fast either, and not pretty. Me and Young we're the only ones left alive when they capture the base and take us. I'm already plenty hurt, so they mainly torture him.” 

His pace has become frenetic, but he slows and takes a deep breath before flashing again the smile that Olding guesses is a sign of pain. 

“We get away, eventually.” Greer shrugs. “But we're both kind of shaky for a while afterwards. Then we get posted to Icarus, where Telford's in charge, and he's like 'guys, you know I had to, no hard feelings right? We're still best friends.'” 

“He had his cover to keep up.” It's a hard story to listen to dispassionately, but he does try. 

“That's what he said. Of course later we find out he's been working for the Lucian Alliance all along, feeding information back to them, so they can get hold of this ship. So that's his plan – he wants this ship and he's been lying for years to homeworld command so he and some cartel of outerspace drug runners can get ahold of it.” 

Olding would like to believe that none of this is true, but it fits so perfectly with things he's heard alluded to, with the ends of sentences cut off when the military saw him coming, with gaps in Air Force records that he hasn't been permitted the clearance to read, that he simply can't ignore it. 

“Meanwhile,” Greer is speeding up again, angry, “Telford tells Young's wife that Young's sleeping with some chick on this ship – which is another damn lie – and muscles in on her himself while she's upset. So this whole slander thing that he's got going down now? It's not the first time he's pulled that trick so he can take what he wants. 

“Now I don't know what's his deal. The higher ups, they thought maybe he was brainwashed and they put him through some stuff to break that. But what I think is; he wanted this ship before and he lied to get it. He wants it now and he's lying to get it. You see where I'm coming from? Before brainwashing, after brainwashing, he's not changed at all. Chances are, you put him in charge of this ship and he'll have the Lucian Alliance in here again as soon as he can figure out how to dial the gate.” 

And then Olding will be the one responsible for ending forever the attempt of two great races to meet God face to face. Olding will be responsible for handing that chance over to terrorists and murderers and scum. 

They've reached a set of doors that would be at home in Soloman's temple, massive and chased all over with gold. Greer goes to hit the door release and Olding grabs his arm, stops him. At the touch, there's a flash of something feral in the boy's eyes that bears out his tale of trauma. 

“Will you swear to me, as God is your witness, that Young is _not_ in any kind of homosexual relationship?” 

Greer unconsciously stands to attention. He looks a little troubled, but he says “I will,” firmly enough. 

It ought to be sufficient. Olding lets go, lets Greer hit the door control and walk through – a brief impression of moving light on bronze. His instincts tell him that Greer is telling the truth, but they told him the same about Telford. 

There _is_ something worryingly obsessive about Telford. But there's also something vaguely... not effeminate, exactly, but certainly _passive_ about Young. 

If he chooses wrongly it will be a disaster, not only for the Earth, but also for his career. _Give me a sign, Lord, please. I don't know what to believe._  

He walks out onto the ship's bridge. One side of the room is all windows through which he can see down onto a floating city of ziggurats and domes. Otherwise, it's very much like the bridge of a human ship, stations for particular tasks arranged around a central command chair. Greer, O'Hara and the blind woman, Park, are sitting at consoles, peering at screens. 

Young is slouched in the command chair with his reading glasses on, apparently trying to decipher a report so heavily overwritten you can't see the colour of the paper for the ink. 

Olding doesn't know what he's going to say but he clears his throat anyway. There's a flare of light off Young's glasses as he looks up, and for a moment Olding sees, clear as day, a fiery angel standing behind the chair, arms outspread, its folded wings as blue-green as the ribbons of star-stuff outside the window. 

He freezes like a rabbit, and he's scared. He's terrified. He's never had a mystical experience before and he doesn't like it... it makes the whole thing seem far too real. 

“Sir?” Young takes off his glasses and puts them down with a click, getting up. It doesn't seem that he can see the thing; he's looking at Olding as though he's worried Olding's having some kind of psychotic break. “You OK?” 

Olding glances at him, trying to think of something to reply, and when he looks back it's gone. 

“Yes, I'm...” 

Well, he asked for a sign, and that was definitely a sign, but shit. He's too stunned to even tell himself off for swearing inside his head. Shit, it's all real. He didn't realize how little he actually believed it all until now, how shallow was his veneer of faith. 

“Yes. I think I'm... I think I'm done here. Can you have someone show me back to Earth, please?” 

~ 

Senator Armstrong is already in the stones room when Young escorts Olding in. She's wearing the same shell-shocked expression that he is, both of them uncharacteristically silent as they touch to go home. 

Young is hard pressed to keep his smile inside until after they've left. When James and Becker are stretching to get their own ghosts right to the tips of their fingers and toes, he looks at Chloe, whose eyes are red. “You good?” 

“I think so,” she compresses her lips but without much success - the smile just creeps out round the edges. “She saw something. In the shuttle. It... it seemed to comfort her.” 

They share what Young likes to think of as a moment of unspoken amusement – and in his case of intense, exasperated relief. 

“I should probably go back tomorrow to find out their reactions,” says Chloe. “But not now, because that would look like we were anxious.” 

“Yeah,” and the ship's day doesn't stop just because one problem is now out of his hands. “We'll let them sleep on it. Listen, Chloe. Whatever happens in the future, thank you.” 

“I don't think the deciding argument was mine,” she says, still with that smile that wants to be a laugh. 

“I'm pretty sure it was a joint effort,” he says and is warmed by the thought. Nodding at James and Becker in thanks, he goes back to the bridge to talk to Greer. Who is looking at him as he comes in. 

O'Hara is running a message down to wherever it is that Rush is hiding with his radio switched off today. So there's only Greer and Park present, both of them caught in a kind of 'don't ask for permission, ask for pardon afterwards' semi-guilty huddle. 

Young wonders what to say. _You wiped the guy's smile off even before whatever it was he saw. I'm sorry I ever doubted you._ It's too heavy and Greer won't appreciate it. Things have always been simple between the two of them. Might as well keep it that way. 

“Thanks, sergeant.” 

“No problem, sir.” 

“What... uh... changed your mind?” 

Greer looks at Park that way he does, like she's the sun around which he orbits. Like he can't believe his luck. “I had a wise councillor.” 

She slaps him on the arm and turns away, embarrassed. 

“And also,” Greer turns a slightly different grin on Young, “your taste may have gone to shit, sir, but you're still the same guy who pulled me out of every hellhole Telford ever shoved me into. That doesn't change.” 

OK, maybe Greer would have coped with heavy after all. “It's all good,” Young says, and lets himself smile back for a moment, until his own embarrassment forces him to add, “How's it coming on that diagnostic on the starboard weapons array?” and casually look away.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which I make full use of some beloved catchphrases, and the end is upon us.

 There's a hollow metallic knock on the wall outside Young's open door, startling him out of his concentration on Camile's list of the crew's untapped hobby skills. He takes his glasses off and rubs both hands over his face, trying to wash away tiredness and anxiety. 

It's been a good couple of days on Destiny. No one's been hurt, the first of the new shoots are sprouting in the repaired hydroponics dome, there is some smoked meat still left in storage, and plenty of water in the tanks. Power supplies are good, and whatever Rush has been up to while he's been hiding in the walls has led to three new corridors being opened up for later exploration, and the lights in the living quarters suddenly being almost bright enough to read by. 

More to the point, Chloe came by the mess at lunch time today to say that whatever it was that the senators had seen up here has completely changed their attitude. Next year's funding is on, O'Neill is so happy he has even forgotten to employ sarcasm about it, and David is being taken off the Icarus project altogether and posted to P8N-391 to open a new front against the Ori. 

Young feels kind of bad about David. On the one hand, David started this fight, so he has no cause to complain if Young finishes it. On the other, there must have been something he could have done differently, some hint he could have spotted earlier or help he could have given that might have saved their friendship. He's going to miss the guy, even though it's a relief that he's gone. 

The brush with Earth politics has also had the benefit of making Destiny's crew close up to protect two of their own against an outside threat. Young doesn't think he's ever been smiled at this much before. It's disconcerting. No doubt it will wear off in time, but he's more than willing to bask in the support while it's there. 

Things would be fantastic, if it wasn't for Rush. And isn't that the story of his life? 

Because he still hasn't seen Rush. The crisis is over, the invaders have gone, and his lover is still avoiding him, like he's carrying the plague. He's tried to be patient. He's let the guy alone to come out of hiding in his own time, but he's starting to wonder if it's ever going to happen – if being looked at this intensely has made Rush want to be invisible for good. 

He's wondering how long he has to wait before he goes and finds him, drags him out of hiding by the scruff of the neck and shakes him. Whether that would make anything better or just cement the problem. 

The knock comes again, followed by footsteps. Relief forms a blockage in his throat as Rush strolls in like he owns the place.

 “If you're trying to make some sort of point about what it's like to be ignored, it's wasted on me. I assure you I'm quite familiar with the feeling.” He has a canteen in one hand, and two military issue mugs hooked around a finger. “Drink?” 

So he's going to pretend that nothing happened at all? It's all over, and everything's back to normal? _Bastard._  

Young shuffles through possibilities in his head. _You made me go through this all on my own. You made me think it was over. It wasn't helpful, Rush. In fact it was shit._ And then they can have a blazing row and maybe punch each other. Maybe then it will be out in the open that everything is finished between them, but he can't see it making either of them feel better about it. 

“Sure,” he says. He tidies up his desk for the night and comes over to sit on the sofa, takes the mug of Brodie's hooch and sips. 

“I brought you a present.” 

Well, that's new. Now he's intrigued and vaguely flattered that Rush has cared enough to make the effort – and so that's why flowers work, is it? Huh. 

“If it's a giant wooden horse you can leave it outside the door.” 

“Oh, very witty, I'm sure.” Rush relaxes enough to drop the 'king of the world' act and start looking slightly uncomfortable. He leans back into the cushions, and so does Young, so that their shoulders touch. Its worrying how good that feels, like the first touch of mag-boot to deck plating when you've been drifting too long. 

“I have a problem with gangs of people who have more power than I do,” Rush starts, looking at his feet, struggling to justify himself in a way that will lead to him being forgiven that does not imply that he was ever actually at fault. 

Yeah, no. Young doesn't like watching this, it's too painful. “This is another of those 'not apologising, just explaining' deals, isn't it? But it's OK, you don't need to do either. I get it. We've had that conversation before.” 

“I suppose we have at that.” Rush slumps a little in relief and puts a hand on Young's thigh. He covers it with his own, interlacing their fingers, and shuffles closer so they're touching all the way down one side. 

“Besides, you came through in the end.” Young is still semi-horrified, semi-amused by Rush's solution, which is par for the course for the guy, and a sensation that he's grown to relish. “Angels, though? Kind of blasphemous, don't you think?” 

“I have no idea what you mean.” Rush's delighted smile wouldn't fool anyone – he likes to have his genius appreciated. But that's OK, because there's no one here who needs to be fooled. 

“Right. And the sudden appearance of two angels on board had nothing to do with you figuring out how to program the ship's simulations in order to help Park. Which, thank you for that, by the way.” 

“Well, she's an invaluable member of my team.” 

Oh, oh Nick! He managed to say that without being sarcastic, or mean, or even ambiguous. It makes Young look back on those early days on Icarus and wonder how much of Rush's bitter misanthropy was down to grief and fear and the feeling that he was surrounded by enemies. And if it's easing now, maybe that means he's starting to feel safe. 

“I'm going to tell her you said that.” 

“Don't you dare!” 

It's no real fun, drinking alone, but drinking together is nice. Rush has relaxed into his side. He frees his hand and slings that arm around the smaller man's shoulders, pulling him closer, both of them unwinding towards comfort. 

“I got a description from Chloe, who got it from her mom. Sounds like you based them on the sun-aliens? But the wings are a puzzle. You get Camile to draw those for you?” 

Rush closes his eyes and smiles like the Cheshire cat. “Feel free to keep on guessing. It's _meant to be a mystery_ , isn't it?” 

He's such a little shit, he has elevated not telling Young anything into an art-form that he has subsequently begun to ask Young to admire. And Young kind of does, when it's over things like this that don't honestly matter. “Seriously? You are a lot of work,” he says fondly.

 He gets fixed with an amused glare in return. “And would you ever _want_ to be sitting idle with nothing to do?” 

Young laughs, “You got me there.” He sits forward to put his mug back down on the table. “So what d'you bring me? Where's my present?” 

Rush has sewn an inside pocket into his waistcoat. He reaches into it and pulls out something round and gold, that covers his palm and overlaps it on both sides. When he drops it into Young's hand, it's heavy, with a heft that says there are small components inside fitted in tight. The back is smooth, the front has a many pointed star. It's reminiscent of the Lucian Alliance's door-opening devices, but smaller and prettier and less likely to give him the creeps. 

“Something to do with the doors?” 

“Well, yes that part's fairly obvious, isn't it?” Rush rolls his eyes at the gentle kick that gets aimed his way for this. “It's a lock for these quarters of yours that don't have one at present.” 

Young bends his head over it and strokes the machined curves with his fingertips, because it's symbolic and special and he doesn't know what to say. He's been given the chance to lock Rush out, or the chance to lock them both in together and deny everyone else the right to enter. The chance to recapture at will the shared solitude they had down on the planet, which he has missed. “It's good. It's great. We'll put it to the test tonight. You are staying, right?” 

“I wanted to thank you,” Rush says, pushing the hair out of his face with both hands, looking away. “For dealing with all of the fallout of this without me. I know I didn't do anything to help and I--” 

“Hey! Hey,” Young's suddenly terrified that Rush is working himself up into a state in which he'll think it's easier to bolt than to carry on, and that's no way for this to end, not without anything said at all. He catches Rush's long hands and holds on. “Easy. Coping with people is my half of the deal. I handle the crew and you handle the ship, we agreed on that a while back. That was never what I was angry about.” 

Judging from the overtones of insult to Rush's baffled expression he takes it as a personal rebuke that he doesn't already understand, that he has to ask. “Then what was?” 

Young's turn to look at his feet, to feel like all the words have sharp edges and he's cutting his fingers as he sifts through them. He can't do this again. He doesn't want to do this again. No more loss. 

“While you were busy pushing people away...” he tried, “did you have to push me too? Did you have to treat me like I'm as dispensable to you as everyone else? Like you're only happy without me? I don't know whether you meant that or not. I c-- I kind of--” 

He has to stop and remind himself to breathe, because this is bringing back memories of divorce and devastation that really aren't helping anyone. He gets a lid on them, screws it down, and tries again, more coherently. “Do you want this to be over? Because if you do, I'd rather you _said so_ , instead of just hiding from me and passing on messages through Park.” 

Oh, hell. He hadn't meant to say any of that out loud. He'd meant to wait and see what happened and, if the worst came to the worst and it was over, accept it with dignified silence and move on. Emily had kind of liked it when she could reduce him to pleading – it did after all prove he cared – but he'd always supposed Rush would look down on that sort of thing with nothing but contempt. 

Instead it turns out Rush looks on it with incomprehension. “What on Earth are you talking about?” 

“This thing we've got. This relationship. I need to know whether you still want it any more. Are we carrying on or are we done?” 

Rush gawps a little more and then shakes his head. But Young doesn't think it's a ' _no, I don't want this_ '. He thinks it's a ' _my God, how do you live when you're this dumb_?' 

With the delicacy of a man accustomed to handling high voltages, Rush hooks a hand around the back of Young's neck, tangling his fingers in Young's hair. He draws Young to him until their foreheads are resting together. There's something about the tilt of his lips that suggests he's laughing inside. And Young has a sudden, blissful premonition that he knows exactly what Nick is about to say. That maybe it's going to turn out all right after all. 

“I told you a long time ago, Young. The context may have changed, but the sentiment's intact.” Rush shoves him in the chest, exasperated but affectionate, not nearly hard enough to bruise. “You and I? We'll never be done.”


End file.
